Nothing wrong with the dancing to me. In fact, as a person who has watched many dance competitions, those girls are really talented. I took dance class for years and couldn’t do some of those moves.
IMHO the costumes were a bit much. Either show leg or stomach, not both.
It’s a stylized bra, panties, and stockings with garters. That’s only “style of the times” for hookers.
ETA: Or consenting adults in their bedroom.
Or far dancers, just as they’ve seen any hundreds of times on TV. Or for going to the beach or the pool.
Adult dancers, which is quite a difference.
And for the record, my daughter wasn’t allowed to wear bikinis when was little either.
And the video’s been taken down.
I’ll be in my bunkbed.
Just kidding, the video’s not on YouTube anymore and I haven’t seen it.
The dancing was fine. The costumes, not so much.
Regards,
Shodan
[aside]Why is it that pole dancing is regarded as explicitly sexual, anyway? It’s basically a gymnastics routine. We don’t regard someone performing on the parallel bars or balance beam as being necessarily sexual; why is a vertical pole any different?
Yeahbut… we don’t live in ancient Greece. We live in a society where sexual contact between minors and adults is heavily stigmatized, where the sexualization of a seven year old is considered heinous. It doesn’t really matter whether ancient Greek boys thought anything of it or not, what matters is what these kids now, in this society, would think. And there is a shitload of evidence that in our current society, it’s a very damaging thing.
As I said though, I think the costumes are inappropriate for the reasons stated but I’m not overwhelmed by outrage. I’m not convinced there is a direct relationship between dressing and dancing like a hussy in a single dance competition and becoming a sexually abused child. I think people worried about pedophiles are overreacting. I just think it crosses a line.
Indeed. So if the kids have no reason to think it’s strange, if everyone around them acts like it’s simply a dance costume, then it doesn’t matter at all. Since we have no reason to think that anyone at the dance competition nor among their instructors was treating them as anything other than dancers in dance costumes, not sexy little temptresses, it’s very hasty to worry.
booooo!!!
Pole Dancing = Strippers.
Yeah, I’m not really losing sleep over it. It seems more like a social faux pas than anything else.
So you’re adapting a dance from a hot Beyoncé video for little girls and your first thought is ‘You know, the original is great and all, but this could use more skin.’
I found another site hosting the video.
I had my guns loaded, ready to tell everyone to unwind their panties about an innocent dance number when I saw that the video had been taken down. Then Snowboarder Bo posted a mirror.
I think it’s pretty obvious that these girls are being sexualized. I felt dirty just watching it.
I can’t wait for Dio to see this.
I didn’t offer an opinion in my OP because I wanted to see what way, if any, this discussion was going to go, but FWIW I thought the routine was awesome. Those girls are very talented, and the routine showcases group timing and what look like some fairly difficult dance moves.
I just went and found the actual Beyonce video, and it seems that a lot of the girls’ routine was aping the dance moves in the video. And now that I’ve seen the video, I think the girls’ routine was even better. They are arguably better than the pros in the video!
I agree that many of those moves would be seen as somewhat sexual-contexted were they made by a dancer 16 or older, to an audience of 16 or older people. However, I don’t think there was anything wrong with the dance routine as performed by 7 year old girls, because they have no frame of reference for the moves as anything other than dance moves.
The movie Rize featured a young girl doing a lot of these impossibly sexual and violent dance moves, but as one of the guys in the film explains, it isn’t sexual at all to her: she’s just making her body do stuff that’s fun to do. And people watch and give approval. Why wouldn’t a kid continue to do that? And ffs why would you want to stop someone from having that in their lives?
I thought the costumes were fine, but I understand The Raised Eyebrow Of Concern™ at it too. But really, go to any beach or public pool. These costumes were only really racy in that they were signifying lingerie. If the girls had been in hula costumes with little coconut shell tops, it would have been described as adorable more often than it was described as scandalous, IMO.
Just because it isn’t sexual to her doesn’t mean she isn’t being sexualized.
Also, isn’t the implied message of the song “If you liked f’ing me so much, you should have asked me to marry you?”
Kids being kids, in all probability more than one of the girls has paused in public on occasion to practice her moves.
On that occasion, it is certain that she got some funny looks.
Knowing kids are perceptive devils, even if only unconsciously, the funny looks are likely to have registered on more than one of those kids as indicating “something funny is going on here.”
By your own posts, it appears I am safe to assume you think that once a kid starts to think “something funny is going on here” something bad has happened to the kid thereby.
Now here’s the question then. Who do we blame for this bad thing happening to this kid? The onlooker who gave her the funny look? Or the people who taught her the dance?*
The onlooker is interpreting her movements in light of the common, established cultural norms applicable to the region and situation.
The people who taught her the dance also know these conventions, but chose for whatever reason to ignore them.
Has someone who interprets actions naturally according to normal conventions done something blameworthy thereby?
Has someone who has taught someone else to act in ways which flaut those conventions done something blameworthy thereby?
The answer to both questions depends on what you’re asking about. Here I’m asking about seven year olds being taught to do stripper moves, by which I mean, dance moves that emphasize pelvic thrusting movements and which are as though the girl is manipulating her own breasts. (Nevermind that she doesn’t have any. The moves were “as-though”.)
*Probably strictly a false dilemma, but you’re welcome to offer alternatives of course.